Julie is perceived by her peers as a superstar — a brain, a jock and a beauty all in one. CJ is seen as a flirt. Taylor is the popular girl, and Sam is the teacher’s pet. All are academic “overachievers.” And all attended Whitman High School, one of the nation’s top public schools and the setting for best-selling author Alexandra Robbins’ study of contemporary American high school culture entitled, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids . Robbins is herself an “overachieving” graduate of the Bethesda, Maryland school (barely 30, she has already published five books). Returning to Whitman a decade after she left for Yale, Robbins draws a sharp contrast between what the school was like then and what it is like now, using it as the basis for her analysis of the “competitive frenzy” that, she argues, has taken root in high schools across the country. “This is not just a book about high school,” Robbins writes.…